


memorial

by thalassashells



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, Heavensward Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4866419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalassashells/pseuds/thalassashells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alphinaud carves a gravestone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	memorial

Alphinaud carves a gravestone.

It's a sad little thing, so clearly built by hands more suited to flipping pages than chipping away at hard earth no matter how advanced the tools he applied to the job. Tataru would've helped, he knew, but doing this on his own felt like the right thing to do. Something she would've been proud of.

When he looks at the result, a misshapen but smooth rectangle of stone with "Ysayle" carved into it in the most intricate script he could manage, he wonders if this was a time he should've accepted his own limitations.

He almost laughs at his own incompetence with his hands. Who was he, a spoiled child riding through life on the backs of those better than he (be it the Scions, the Warrior, his grandfather, his own twin), to try and honor someone who's suffering shaped her life? Who had died for her dream, without fear, while he cowered in his lavish room in the Fortemps manor?

Y'shtola finds him weeping onto his creation.

"Ysayle," she says, rolling the word over her scholar's tongue, "that was Lady Iceheart's true name, no?" 

Alphinaud nods in silence, grateful that she does not mention his tears. 

"'Tis a shame I did not get to meet her. The stories beggar belief..." Y'shotla says as she trails her fingers gently over the engraving.

"Please do not think her a villain." Alphinaud whispers hoarsly, willing the rising wave of sadness in his gut to stay beneath the surface, "No matter what Estinien has said to you..no matter..." he fails, hot tears carving paths down his face once more.

"I do not. Sir Estinien has spoken only well of her, you know." Y'shtola places a hand on Alphinaud's shoulder, steady and sure.

Silence thick as tar fills the room, heavy with unspoken grief.

"They're gone," Alphinaud cuts through it, unable to keep his voice steady any more than seconds ago, "First Grandfather, then Haurchefant, now Ysayle...They're all gone. What am I to do?" his tears turn to choked sobs, "If everyone keeps disappearing, what am I to do?!" 

"Living." Y'shtola says simply, "You are to keep living."

"Living?" he repeats back to her, disbelieving.

"Is that not all you can do? Is that not what you would wish of us?" she asks and wraps her arms around Alphinaud. For the first time in a long time, he feels like the child he tries to forget he still is. He hates it for a split moment, he's enraged, that for all he's seen, accomplished, failed, lost..he was but a child.

But he can't find a single thing to argue with her about. Living. That's all there is, forging the path forward. Is that not what Ysayle did in her sacrifice? Forge the path?

Who was he to stop her dream here?

"It..it is, I suppose. And you're not all gone yet." He sniffles and leans into her embrace. 

"And with any luck, we will not be going anywhere anytime soon." She smiles down at him, "Come, help me with the node we found. It seems to be operational."  
He nods back at her, and manages to pull himself to his feet once again. The grave, the memory of Ysayle, is still in his hands.  
\--  
He brings it to Anyx Trine, days later.

The dragons do not understand the small stone. He is cut to the core having to explain, as they have no such thing as a grave, a recording device useful only to mortals with their tiny, tiny lives. With their immortal blood and memories that turn hundreds of years into days, what good is a marker? 

Vidofnir's cry of grief nearly deafened him, shaking the ground and surely ringing to all corners of the Forelands. He would never forget the terrible sound.

Alphinaud wondered if Ysayle knew, even now, that her loss was felt as keenly to the dragons as Shiva's had been all those years ago. 

"You reminded me of my sister, you know." he says only to Ysayle's memory as he packs the dirt tight but clean around the base of the grave, ensuring it would not be easily felled, "Both of you, so stubborn and passionate...I was envious, if I am to be honest."  
He picks Dravanian lilies from a nearby flourishing patch, and places them at the smoothed foot of the grave. 

"But I will keep moving. And I won't let them forget you." he fights off another swell of tears, "No matter how much they might want to, I won't let them forget you."

He stays with her until the sun sets over the Forelands.

**Author's Note:**

> square and me found peace in 3.1 and also im amazed at my own powers of prediction


End file.
